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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28082706">Also in the Act of Reaching</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck'>the_rck</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teixcalaan Series - Arkady Martine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fish out of Water, Friendship, Gen, Reunions, Travel, Unresolved Sexual Tension</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:01:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,166</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28082706</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Three Seagrass arrived at Lsel Station, she was, officially at least, traveling as a private personage. She had missed Mahit and the possibilities they'd both chosen to turn away from. She also had-- would always have-- a gaping hole in her life where Petal had once stood. </p><p>It was simply that, left on her own, Three Seagrass wouldn't have let either absence drag her to the ass-end of beyond.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Also in the Act of Reaching</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/nnozomi/gifts">nnozomi</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>References to the possibility of genocide.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Three Seagrass arrived at Lsel Station, she was, officially at least, traveling as a private personage. She had missed Mahit and the possibilities they'd both chosen to turn away from. She also had-- would always have-- a gaping hole in her life where Petal had once stood. </p><p>It was simply that, left on her own, Three Seagrass wouldn't have let either absence drag her to the ass-end of beyond.</p><p>She mentally reprimanded herself for the words. Not because they weren't true but because saying what she felt that way, saying it at all, would certainly hurt Mahit, and whether Mahit was upset or not, other people on the station would be. No one enjoyed being found wanting.</p><p>"They will know you are mine," the Emperor had said when she told Three Seagrass to book passage and to write to Mahit. "The Ambassador knows, and she has been clear about her loyalties." The Emperor had spent almost three seconds studying Three Seagrass. "I'm not asking you to spy. Merely...</p><p>"Visit your friend. Come back and tell me how she's changed and how she hasn't. I don't want one of those damned machines. I don't want specs for how to build them. I want to know if Yskandr Aghavn has stolen her body now that he's had months to work on it."</p><p>Three Seagrass knew that she'd been given the task as much because the Emperor didn't want to spread knowledge of the imago machines any more widely than she had to as because Three Seagrass knew Mahit Dzmare better than anyone else available.</p><p>"I don't want to wonder if any old enemy is watching me through the eyes of a body I trust," the Emperor had said, "so I need to know more."</p><p>Three Seagrass could still feel the weight of the Emperor's expectant gaze and cutting sharpness of her trust. The Emperor wasn't expecting anything of Three Seagrass that she wouldn't-- hadn't-- done herself.</p><p>Three Seagrass watched Lsel Station grow larger as her ship approached. She very much hoped that she would find Mahit entirely herself, both because Mahit was... a friend. Yes, a friend, and because, if only Yskandr Aghavn remained in Mahit's body, every person who had ever set foot on Lsel Station would die.</p><p>Mahit had been so very sure that, if it were working correctly and installed correctly, the device wouldn't erase her or fundamentally alter her. She'd trusted what she'd been taught.</p><p>Mahit had been sweet and dedicated and so very inexperienced in ruthlessness. Had Mahit not been raised a barbarian, she'd probably have been very like Twelve Azalea. </p><p>Mahit had understood that, someday, Lsel Station would be part of the Empire. She hadn't understood the visceral revulsion that the Emperor felt at the idea of one mind overwriting another so easily or that it was a fear the Emperor would not forget. She hadn't understood that there were worse things that might happen to her home.</p><p>At least, Three Seagrass assumed that Mahit hadn't understood. The fact that she had returned to her so fragile space station home implied it.</p><p>Possibly, the idea of machine mediated immortality made the probability of death seem trivial, but Mahit had implied that each imago was unique.</p><p>Unique things were the most ephemeral. </p><p>____</p><p>Mahit was uncomfortably aware that she and Lsel Station had little to offer Three Seagrass. The station had beauty but not the sort of beauty that a Teixcalaanlitzlim would see. Simplicity for the sake of efficiency was not part of the Teixcalaanli aesthetic; it smelled too much of desperation.</p><p>Simplicity was meant to have depth. It was meant to assert that neither the creator nor the observer needed to expend resources on being noticed. It was meant as a statement of appreciation that would only be understood by the civilized.</p><p><em>It's unlikely Three Seagrass even speaks our language,</em> Yskandr said. <em>And low expectations are easier to exceed.</em></p><p>Mahit knew that he was baiting her, trying to make her focus on a smaller problem that might have a solution. Her lips twitched. <em>I'm fairly sure she's not interested in learning.</em> Mahit also wasn't sure whether Three Seagrass wanting to learn would be better or worse.</p><p><em>None of my lovers ever learned,</em> Yskandr told her. <em>All of the reaching out was mine.</em></p><p>Mahit decided not to point out that he'd died from trying to be Teixcalaanli; Yskandr knew.</p><p><em>Your story wouldn't follow mine,</em> he said. <em>She isn't either of them.</em></p><p><em>She'd like to be.</em> Mahit knew it wasn't that simple. Mahit could see the beauty of the City and of the Empire, but now that she saw the story more clearly, she knew that the story's spaces for Mahit Dzmare would shape her, slice away the parts that didn't fit, and give nothing in return.</p><p>Every fragment of Three Seagrass fit the story already.</p><p>Mahit no longer quite belonged on Lsel Station. She'd been in the process of separating herself from her culture for most of her life. There hadn't been time to excel both Teixcalaanli poetry and the forms better suited to her native tongue. She'd studied the history as if it were her own.</p><p>Yskandr sighed. <em>I suppose there is something to be said about making sure to orient your spin on relevant things.</em></p><p>Mahit was a little surprised to hear him say those words. She was pretty sure that, once he'd reached the City, he'd jettisoned his stationer language.</p><p>A person bound by gravity to a single and unbreakable orientation would eventually stop thinking about the individuality of spin, velocity, acceleration. When Mahit had been in the City, she'd had to accept gravity as abruptly singular in the same way that light from a too near star was.</p><p>No one planned solar energy storage based on the idea that the star providing it might suddenly radiate an entirely different kind of light or vanish altogether. If either happened, being prepared for storage issues wasn't going to help anyway.</p><p><em>It's very easy to forget about a danger when you've done tedious drill after tedious drill without ever needing them.</em> Yskandr's words were dry. <em>When the drills stop, the risk feels less.</em></p><p>Mahit supposed he'd had other dangers to worry about.</p><p><em>Yes,</em> Yskandr admitted. <em>Just not the ones I should have paid attention to.</em></p><p>___</p><p>Three Seagrass hadn't considered the possibility of a language barrier. Seeing that the signs offering a final warning about what items were banned on Lsel Station in four languages was jarring. Teixcalaanli wasn't the first language or even the second. It came last.</p><p>Three Seagrass wasn't sure about the reasoning for most of the bans. Banning fireworks made sense, she supposed, but why ban perfumes? And did that mean that scented products she'd brought with her would be confiscated? </p><p>She missed her cloudhook. She still had it, but there was nothing, this far out, for it to connect with.</p><p>Finding the answers to those questions would have been so easy if she were still at home. Three Seagrass thought that she was starting to understand how isolated and powerless Mahit must have felt when she walked in the City, among citizens.</p><p>Three Seagrass wondered what people on Lsel Station used instead. She felt like she ought to know that already.</p><p>The customs agent who checked her things before allowing her on the station spoke Teixcalaanli with a heavy accent and jumbled grammar. He didn't bother with any polite gestures or specific honorifics, merely warned her that most of her things would be irradiated to prevent microorganisms from sneaking aboard the station. Anything she was unwilling to subject to that treatment would need several weeks of quarantine, and she, herself, would need to pass through decontamination.</p><p>"Treatment may alter chemical balance of personal care products. Replacement recommended. Process not recommended for medications. Replacement may be purchased with physician's statement required."</p><p>Judging by the man's expression, he would be entirely pleased if Three Seagrass and her luggage retreated back to the ship that had brought them and never returned to Lsel Station.</p><p>She supposed that all of this explained the hefty non-disembarcation deposit she'd had to put down when she booked passage. If she'd needed regular medication, she might have reconsidered her visit.</p><p>Well, she might have if she weren't under orders.</p><p>She offered the custom's agent a small smile and said, "Thank you. I'm sure my friend can help me with that." She wasn't sure what irradiation would do to her cloudhook, so she pulled it out and asked whether she could put it in quarantine. </p><p>"Until I leave," she added. "I won't need it here."</p><p>He offered her a box. The lid and walls appeared unusually thick to Three Seagrass. He tapped one side. "Vacuum. After you lock, vacuum walls."</p><p>That seemed excessive to Three Seagrass, but she nodded.</p><p>The cloudhook only took up a little space, so she considered her toiletries. None of them were special enough to be worth storing, not even the handcrafted soap she'd bought with the vague idea that Mahit might like the scent.</p><p>___</p><p>When Three Seagrass emerged from decontamination, she found Mahit waiting for her.</p><p>"I already got your bags," Mahit said. She looked a little uncertain. "I wasn't sure-- Did you set up a place to stay already or are you staying with me? It'll be a little cramped," she added in a rush, "but it'll be fine if that's what you want. A more authentic Lsel Station experience!"</p><p>Three Seagrass smiled. "I would be honored to stay with you, but, as I invited myself, I would hate to put you out."</p><p>Mahit met Three Seagrass's eyes directly. "Resources shared should be repaid." Mahit said it as if it were an aphorism, but it wasn't one with which Three Seagrass was familiar.</p><p>Perhaps it was local?</p><p>Three Seagrass hesitated then realized that she was waiting for Mahit to offer some recognizable social cue. Three Seagrass looked around. The shape of the room they were in and of the corridor that she could see beyond it was wrong. After a moment, she realized that it was far too much like being in a bunker, lowered ceilings, artificial light, heavily filtered air.</p><p>She could hear voices as if they were near a streetmarket. "Are we near your home?" she asked.</p><p>Mahit laughed, and the sound was shaped differently than any Three Seagrass remembered from her. "Bit of a walk," she said, "but we're at least on the right level. Maybe twenty minutes. I can get a cart for your bags."</p><p>"If you think it best," Three Seagrass replied. She made a small gesture with one hand. "This is all very new to me."</p><p>As they walked toward Mahit's home, Three Seagrass realized that Mahit's odd laugh sounded like that of the other inhabitants of Lsel Station. The concourse, as Mahit called it, wasn't overly crowded, but it was far from empty.</p><p>Mahit also moved like the people around them. She spoke proper Teixcalaanli, including the gestures, but her stride was different as was the way she held her shoulders.</p><p>Three Seagrass found it equal parts disorienting and comforting. </p><p>Yskandr Aghavn spent twenty years in the City. He was intimate with the current Emperor when she was Nineteen Adze and with the Emperor Who Had Been. He had been, by all reports, exquisitely, carefully, and habitually Teixcalaanli in his mannerisms.</p><p>Three Seagrass couldn't imagine that he'd have given that up in order to rusticate here.</p><p>Though she supposed the word didn't apply to living on a space station. The place felt alien to Three Seagrass, but there was nothing pastoral in its remoteness. Everything was too deliberately uniform.</p><p>"I'll have to run through safety drills with you," Mahit said. "That'll tell you a lot about why things are the way they are and how to predict where things can be found."</p><p>There was something in Mahit's voice, in Mahit's body language, that told Three Seagrass that Mahit was afraid. It was the look of a small child offering her first poem to a stern older relative.</p><p>Mahit thought Three Seagrass might sneer. No, Mahit knew that she wouldn't; Mahit thought Three Seagrass might judge and then offer lying praise that missed the point of what Lsel Station was trying to do.</p><p>Ripping a child's poem to pieces for doing a thing badly was less cruel than dismissing the effort with words that made it unimportant.</p><p>Three Seagrass smiled. "A new-- well, new to me-- architectural idiom." She spoke student to teacher but with a hint of teasing. "Please help me learn the context."</p><p>Three Seagrass very much meant it.</p><p>Yskander Aghavn would never have that much fear or that much hope about what Three Seagrass thought of anything.</p><p>Three Seagrass would have weeks to gather evidence to make her case to the Emperor, but she already knew.</p><p>The person walking next to her was Mahit Dzmare. Whatever the imago devices did, it wasn't the horror of the Emperor's deepest fears.</p>
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